°☆•○~ "A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."~○•☆°

For the first time in what felt like forever, I had awoken to soft kisses being showered across my face and the warmth of being in Makhosi's arms.

"Must you wake me from my deep slumber before the rooster even dares to crow, my king?" I asked, my eyes fluttering from the tempting darkness to the dull rays of the rising sun.

"Life is a gift, my queen. We must learn to embrace it, every moment and that includes the simple pleasures such as these." His deep baritone voice gently whispered before assaulting me with tender kisses.

"Mmm... do those include not allowing your wife sufficient rest for her big day?"

"My wife must treasure these tender moments with her husband, it could possibly be her last." He casually spoke as if it were normal to bring up his death.

His statement caused me to finally awake from my drunken sleep state. "My last? Is there another war you are to fight? Are you to leave me to the ever growing resentment from the council? Where is it that you must go again? Must I suffer once more the pain of being alone?" My mouth began to ramble the thought of his absence made me feel nothing but the hollownes of the never ending torture — I felt empty.

"My queen, did Mazimele not inform you of the ceremony?"

"She didn't elaborate much on the details but seeing as that the life of my husband is once again hanging on the edge of death like a loose branch on a tree, I can see why." I answered him, my eyes boring into his.

"I am to kill and bring home both a leopard and a young elephant bull. The leopard skin as a gift to my heir and the bull for the ceremony." He explained before he began nibbling on his bottom lip and I knew he wasnt telling me everything, even the way his eyes were shifting from the thatched ceiling to the window; the was something else to it.

"What is it that you are not telling me?" Worry was dripping from each word I spoke what could cause him so much uncertainty and make him nervous.

"For the ritual to work...I have to kill the leopard without the aid of any weapons."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, had I heard him right or were my sleepy senses to blame. "You have to what?"

"—Kill the leopard with my bare hands." His voice was small, filled with fear.

"Call it off. Tell them that we're not doing it. You did not escape the jaws of death in the battle for you to die by the hand of your own totem for a stupid tradition. Makhosi call it off." It was a demand, I wasn't asking him, I was telling him and that was because I would not risk his life again, my child deserves both parents.

"Nohereka, what will that say of me? They will think I am a coward, that I'm fearful and I'm not worthy to be king."

"And so what? Your life is way more important than your reputation, I will not sit and watch you walk to your death because those old hags who sit on their bottoms and do nothing but drink calabash after calabash and are incapable of even thinking of useful solutions for anything." I was practically fuming by now, he was willing to die for this tradition, to sacrifice his life and he called me irrational.

"It's tradition, Nohereka."

"Tradition? What good will that tradition do me if you're dead? What am I to tell our child? Your father died because of a tradition; because he was recovering the leopard skin for you as a gift? Makhosi you should take your own advice and think. I've had enough of your council throwing you into the hands of death, and should you die," my voice had been replaced by the dark anger the was once dormant. "I swear to the ancestors they will follow not long after."

Fear was swimming in his eyes, competing against the little seeds of hope planted into the infertile mud brown orbs that gazed upon mine, begging for something, someone to hold onto. A deep sigh escaped my lips, " Choosing our battles doesnt make us weak it makes us strong. Like you've said before, my king. The difference between a great leader and a good one is knowing when and when not to fight."

"This is honour and tradition, I have to do it." He reasoned with me trying to convince himself more than me.

"Then return to me unscathed, my king."

My mind couldn't stop replaying the events of the morning even as I stood outside Mazimele's isolated hut along with Azile and Runako; my mind was far from here, it ran along through the woods hoping that Makhosi was safe.

"My queen, are you alright? You seem distant, like your body is here but your mind is somewhere else." Azile's soft voice asked me, sincerity clothing her eyes like the way fur coats an animal.

"No worries, I am alright. I'm just getting a bit nervous that's all." I lied whilst causing a radiant smile to cross my lips. The stern look on both their faces told me they knew I was lying and yet the didn't question me further.

"Please come in, come in." Mazimele called for us as her hunched frame opened the wooden door. I was immediately greeted by by the fresh scent of lavenders along with other medicinal herbs and plants hanging from her thatched roof.

"We must begin preparing you immediately for the ceremony it commences at dusk, we do not want any delays." She said as her wrinkled hands began clearing ourselves with the burning bundle of herbs to ward away an evils or forms of bad luck.

"My queen, please undress yourself." She instructed as she began preparing  the ritual dagger used to carve out the tribal scars for protection.

"Undress? Mazimele is there a way for this to be less invasive?" I asked as I felt the heat rushing up my cheeks which caused Runako and Azile to snicker behind me.

"My queen, I apologize but this is the only way. You must learn to find comfort in your true form, nudity leaves us as we are, plus its nothing we all do not have. Please undress yourself." She instructed me once more as the continued preparing the tools for the cleansing ceremony.

I slowly began tugging off the leather top, I could feel their heated gaze burning through me as I hesitantly began pulling down the matching skirt.

"My queen, there is much to do and there is not time for dilly dally. Be proud of your body its your gift to the king and the vessel for the heir." Mazimele said as she beckoned me to take a seat close to the fire.

"I begin the ceremony of cleansing by bringing the two women to bear witness, like a bridge and a river; two to represent the two sides to any thing evil and good." Her eyes we cast towards the ceiling as she held the the small ritual knife.

"Please come forward and accept the privilege to become pillars of the Queen's sanity. The sanctuary of her mind when not at ease." Runako stepped towards Mazimele holding out her palm which Mazimele gently sliced open as she spoke, "The side of joy, you will serve as a reminder the Joy's of life and what it must offer; the true meaning of purity and essence."
Runako stepped back before offering me a little wink which caused my cheeks to flush as heat coursed through me.

Azile stepped forward offering Mazimele her palm, which she gently sliced open allowing the drops of blood to fall into the clay bowl like Runako's. "The side of insatiable anger, the side of pain and inconsolable misery — the side of evil. You will serve as the light in the darkness the shoulder to cry on. You will be the rock of the queen." Azile's eyes held mine, a small smile crossed her lips she had the hardest side out of the two hence why she was my maiden, forever with me as well as I was with her.

Mazimele carefully moved the clay bowl towards me before gently pressing the tip of the blade onto my finger earning a small drop blood which fell into the bowl. "Balance to the life of the queen. Ancestors bless the lives of all three the two pillars of the community and the life source of the tribe." Mazimele prayed  before spilling the blood into the fire. The first part of the ceremony was complete.

"Now we carve these tribal scars against each side of the pregnancy. Runako and Azile please hold the hands of the queen as I begin." She instructed before I started to feel the small incisions on my stomach, the cold blade slicing through my soft flesh and the pain of each one. It was consistent unending the pain began to disappear into the numbness that replaced it.

"It is done. Wash the queen with milk, I must collect some herbs for the tea. I will be a few moments." Mazimele informed us as she rose to her feet before shuffling outside the hut venturing deep into the forests.

Azile began helping me towards the large bath that contained milk whilst Runako collected the pot of honey it was the third part of the ceremony cleaning the vessel. "Please sit my queen, must I fetch you anything to eat or drink?" Azile asked to which I responded with only a quick shake of my head.

The milk had now turned from white to a guava pink colour, my blood was tainting the perfectly white bath. The golden coloured honey, felt sticky as it  oozed down my naked body. Azile and Runako began to wash my body with cloth removing  the honey before I exited the bath.

My body was beginning to weaken I assumed it was part of the process, and not I would await the final part – the vision from the ancestors, then it will be over. Mazimele's hand held a cup to my lips, the foul smell almost made me hurl my guts out but I drank it, the thick soggy liquid slowly went down my throat prolonging the bitterness of it.

My eyes began to droop closed, I could feel the darkness pulling me into it's tender embrace as my breathing started to slow down. I imagine death would be as peaceful but I was wrong.

In the midst of the darkness I could hear the cackling of women, I would have mistaken them for a pack of hyenas but my mother's laughter would always haunt me.

"Wena unxangaba kuti ubani?"
"Who do you think you are?"

"Wena uti umama lo mtwana waMakhosi?"
"You call yourself the mother of Makhosi's child?"

"Wena uisiliwani utande nobatande!"
"You are a lion whether you like it or not!"

Those were the ndebele ancestors, making a mockery of me and cackling  like a coven of evil witches. They may have been the ancestors but they were once people, well they were now spirits of the lingering dead.

"Vashumba mauuya, tinokugashirayi."
"The lion, you have arrived, we welcome you.

"Nhai shumba ungazvara mwana waingwe?"
"How can you a lion birth the child of the leopard?

"Mambokadzi batisisai korona yenyu, pane zvakakumirirai."
"Hold on tight to your crown, Queen, there's much yet to unfold.

The resentment and mockery laced into each statement they spoke caused my anger to awaken. Dead or alive I would not accept any form of disrespect but just as I was about to speak my mother emerged from the darkness and in her hands she held a child, my child.

"Greetings my beautiful daughter." Her voice was gentle and yet it caused the hair on the back of my skin to rise. "My grandson has your temper as he does your eyes."

"Mother?" I could feel the hatred sprouting its roots deeper into my spine riling up my vicious anger that was pacing throughout the walls of my mind.

"Is that anyway to greet your mother? I thought you'd be happy to see me as I am overjoyed to see you. You're a spitting image of me." Malice was carved deep into the beautiful features of her face, and the sinister motives were as clear as diamonds, crystal clear.

"I will never be like you!" It was a guttural growl, one controlled by my anger.

Her laughter grated my eardrums, a cackle that resembled a screeching cat."Sweet child, you and I are one in the same. Vicious monsters clothed in a womans body — beautiful devils." She spoke as she cradled my sleeping child.

"Even death doesn't stop your efforts to destroy me. What kind of a mother are you, is it not enough that I suffer from your trauma and now you must go for my son?" My words were powdered with pain and insatiable rage, the monster of my nightmare.

"I love you, I am your mother–"

I immediately interrupted her, it was one of her mind games, she'd make me believe she was being a good mother and that her mental and physical abuse meant well. "Don't you dare! Don't you dare use the title of mother with me you are a woman who I'm ashamed to share blood with, you mean nothing to me."

Her eyes widened as tears began to brim her cedar colored eyes, it was true that we were the same; but that was just physically mentally I wasn't as demented as her. "I love you, even though you wish me to burn in the furnaces of hell, I will wish nothing but good for you and bestow blessings on you."

"Crawl back to the pits of hell and burn." As soon as those words escaped me I was surrounded by a ring of fire, the soul shredding screams erupted from all around me.

"Umlulilo!"
"Moto!"
"Fire!"

Blood began sputtering around me, so many bodies; men, women and children all dead in the midst of a flaming village.

My breath was now shallow as the fire began to close in threatening to consume me. I wouldn't die not here and not like this.

My eyes snapped open revealing Azile and Runako's worried faces and yet the first voice I heard was Mazimele's. "Welcome back to the land of the living, my queen."

☆☆☆☆
🤗hope you enjoy this is my last chapter, for now. I am almost done plotting the whole book so...☠I will hopefully finish the book before next year👀, I hope. Stat safe guys.

❤❤Love maniac_lunaticbae

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